By Shazia Manus, Chief Strategy & Business Development Officer, AdvantEdge Analytics

When someone asks you to “dream big,” how do you feel? Are you excited by the prospect of igniting your imagination or overwhelmed by the lack of limits?

In my experience, most credit union people fall into the first category. That’s probably because they’ve seen how a single good idea within the movement can have a very real, very meaningful impact on the financial lives of the people they serve. Credit union members are not only the beneficiaries of credit union innovation – they are the sole reason for it.

The upcoming Underground Collision at Money 20/20 will give us a great opportunity to dream big and take action on all things money. Importantly, we’ll talk about what it means to be people helping people during a time in which machines and other learning technologies are becoming increasingly influential. We’ll discuss the possibilities and the challenges presented by exponential technologies. How are advancements in areas like AI, quantum computing, 5G and data analytics helping us evolve to better serve the member?

Interested in attending? Learn more here!

Over the course of two decades in the credit union industry, I’ve found it helpful to have a framework in place when igniting our imaginations – the business philosophy of exploit and explore. This approach is particularlyuseful because it provides people of different brainstorming styles with a unique point of entry into the conversation. For individuals who gain most of their creative energy by examining what’s already working well, the framework enables them to start with the status quo but take it to the next level. For those who are mainly inspired by macro themes, exploit and explore encourages them to tie big-picture ideas back to their organization’s purpose and core competencies.

If we don’t exercise our critical thinking muscles, they atrophy. Memory is a powerful force, and one that can push imagination aside with ease. It’s the reason leaders struggle to pull their teams out of the knowing-doing gap, a phenomenon that describes the failure to act even when we know action is necessary.

Over time, applying the exploit and explore framework to strategy sessions, and even day-to-day problem-solving, builds up our critical thinking muscles, as well as corporate ambidexterity. It trains people within a particular enterprise to continue doing what they do best while looking ahead to what they may do even better. Credit unions that apply this lens to their innovation and transformation efforts often find entirely new ways of doing well while doing good. It’s as Kat Cole, COO of Cinnabon says, “The fruits are in the roots.”

Can't join the Underground Collision in Vegas? Join us digitally!

In this era of digital transformation, there are several emerging disciplines within financial services in which we see exploit and explore being lived out today. Data analytics is a prime example. It allows leaders to see what’s working (i.e., descriptive analytics), what could work if we made a few tweaks (i.e., predictive analytics) and which of the tweaks will have the greatest impact (i.e., prescriptive analytics).

Digital lending is another area of financial services in which the core competencies of yesterday are evolving for the needs of consumers today. Member expectations for speed, convenience and personalization are pressuring credit union lenders to adapt. A slew of vendors – from legacy incumbents to lend-tech startups – are popping up to help lenders apply a digital lens to analog processes for faster, more seamless borrower experiences.  

Speaking of tech startups, market disruption created by an entirely new set of financial services providers is a third area where the exploit and explore mentality can potentially provide some competitive relief. One of the things I look most forward to discussing at Money 20/20 is how the credit union industry can better mobilize its long-held collaborative principles to partner with compelling, purpose-driven newcomers. Where there is a convergence of member-centric innovation and scale, we want to be there, right? Credit unions have a huge opportunity to be in lockstep with fintech disruptors. After all, we’ve traveled that road before as the original disruptors of the traditional banking model.

A fourth area that is somewhat different from the above, but also in perfect alignment with the exploit and explore approach, is that of the changing membership base. We are increasingly serving members who think, look, feel and act in wildly disparate ways. Credit unions and their partners have the opportunity to serve the most diverse membership in history. How the industry stands up to that potential says a lot about how truly we are living out the people helping people vision of the movement’s founders. It’s a topic I’m incredibly passionate about and can’t wait to tackle in Las Vegas next month.

Please make a plan to attend our panel discussion, People Helping People in the Digital Era, which will tackle each of the above (and probably so many more) areas of change. We’ll let our imaginations run while reminding ourselves that what we do best continues to have a place in the digital era. Hope to see you there...